Grief
by nutup
Summary: Spoilers for season 9 episode 3. Castiel has a hard time adjusting to his new, human feelings. He discovers some new ones too. Slight Destiel and Megstiel (but only if you think it that way.)


Castiel was finishing his burrito at the huge dining table. He was alone in the big library like room and heard faint sounds of converstation coming from the study. It sounded like Sam and Dean were arguing about something, but Castiel didn't pay any attention to it, it wasn't unusual that the brothers had disagreements.

At the moment he was more distracted by the warm feeling in his gut, he believes humans call that feeling satisfied, content, full. It was astonishing how much humans actually had to deal with. So much physical needs, let alone the emotions, thoughts and feelings he couldn't help but having.

As an angel he simply observed the situation, made some choices, heard requests and sometimes acted on them. These are things that you only need your mind and intelligence to do. His brain worked perfectly. No distractions clouding his mind and making things look different than how they really were.

Being human was hard. Castiel soon found out that it was hard to think and make desicions if he was hungry, tired or stressed. He didn't like it. But he had gotten used to it by now. In fact, he had gotten more than used to some humanly functions like eating, he enjoyed the flavours and the full feeling it gave him. It was concerning him, it was scary to think that his survival depended on something so simple as food or seven hours of rest or letting your aching feet rest after walking for too long.

But it wasn't the physical stuff that bothered Castiel too much. He was now quite good maintaining his health and pretty much knew what he needed to do and when he needed to do these things. Of course he learned something new everyday, like yesteday April taught him not to consume the toothpaste, but to rub it on your teeth with a brush. After realizing that, it made much more sense. Still, the things that bothered Castiel were feelings, emotions. It was hard to recognize them and tell some apart from each other. He didn't know if he was happy, grateful or touched when the homeless community took him in for a day and shared their meal. He knew when to say thank you, but the mix of feelings made him unsure. Anyway he tried to mimic other people as much as possible, and had done well with that, excluding few silly mistakes.

The worst of these feelings was when he had seen Dean today. He was standing there, looming over him, softly cradling Castiel's face and looking shattered. The rush of feelings was almost too much when Castiel had studied Dean's face, – it showed fear, anger, hopelessness, all smashed together, his eyes glimmering with tears. It had hurt to see his closest friend like that. It really, physically, hurt. A squeeze in his heart and a twist in his stomach, and he was sure it wasn't from the wounds the reaper gave him. He didn't have a word for this emotion.

There was also another weird thing he couldn't put his finger on. He felt it every time something reminded him of Meg. It was an empty feeling, like something was missing. Maybe it was concern? Though he didn't want to even begin to understand why he would feel anything for a demon. He shook the thoughts out of his head and stuffed the last piece of the epic food in his mouth and swallowed almost without chewing.

The argument in the other room had stopped and all that could be here were a scraping of a heavy wooden chair against the floor and unsteady steps that came closer. Dean appeared to the door and stood there for a while.

"Hi, Dean," Castiel greeted with a soft smile. He liked the fact that he didn't have to force a smile on his face to show friendliness. His corners just automatically were lifted up when he had a good feeling inside of him.

"Cass, hi," Dean sounded hesitant and slowly made his way to Cass, rubbing the back of his neck. "How's it going?"

Castiel knew that Dean had something else on his mind than to come and check on his well being, but he didn't want to push it. Instead he nodded his head and tapped a chair next to him, inviting the other man to sit down. He sat and traced his gaze from Castiel's shoes to his eyes.

"I think I'm doing just fine now," Castiel started and wiped the corners of his mouth with a napkin. "I'm fully satisfied at the moment, and my wounds are only faintly aching. Are you okay?"

Dean seemed confused and caught off guard. He shrugged and let out a small chuckle. "Yeah, sure."

"You're sure? I mean, not many hours ago you looked like the world was coming to an end," Cass put suspicion on his voice and reached out to touch Dean's arm.

"But that's when I thougt you were gone," Dean huffed a protest, not giving a reaction to the warm touch.

Castiel smiled shortly and drew his hand back to his own lap. He tried to show understaning on his face, but he wasn't sure that Dean got it. It propably is going to be hard for both of the Winchesters too, to get used to all-human Cass who has needs and feelings and everything. It made him warm inside to think that he was cared about, especially when it was Dean who wanted to make sure everything was okay before saying something obviously heavy on his mind.

"Thank you, Dean," he suddenly blurted out. Dean lifted his gaze and frowned a little.

"For what?"

"Well, you know, for saving my life, taking care of me," Castiel recited casually, "that's for starters."

Dean gave out a small smile and there could be seen a gleam of happiness in his eyes. He shrugged and slapped Cass on the shoulder – the unwounded one. "Pff, that's what I'm here for. Saving people's asses. And it's hard not to take care of you, who knows what you might do if I wasn't here to guide you!"

Castiel chuckled softly and started to think about the consept of caring for something. It felt different when Father had taken care of him and his brothers, it was expected and required from him. And when he stopped doing it, it only rose anger and disbelief among all the angels. But when a human cares for someone, it's out of something else than duty. It's out of maternal instinct, kindness, will to help, and... love? Castiel wasn't quite sure what love meant, but he was sure it had something to do with being concerned about someone.

When a human stops caring for another, it doesn't leave anger on the top. It leaves confusion, sadness, and that weird empty feeling Castiel has when he thinks about Meg or the closests of his brothers.

"Where's Meg?"

Dean huffed in surprise and looked at Cass with raised eyebrows. The question came out of the blue, and he actually had to think for a moment before he remembered what happened to that demon. There was a brief silence, Dean wasn't sure how to respond. Castiel didn't give away any of his feelings in that question. Was he worried, was he just casually asking and making conversation, trying to fill the gaps in his memory?

"Why do you care?" was the best answer he could come up with, and it wasn't really an answer.

"I don't know," Castiel was being honest and he lowered his head in slight embarrasment. His relationship with Meg was always confusing and weird, he just didn't think about it when he was a broken angel. Back then he was only happy that he had company and that someone tried to make him feel better. When he thought about it, he really didn't have a clue why Meg did any of it, it wasn't very demony. Her vessels mind must've been very strong, bringing out the humanity more than in a usual posession.

"Well, she-.." Dean's voice got caught up dry, and he had to clear his throat to continue. "She's gone. Crowley killed her."

Dean tried to reach Cass' gaze to see how he felt about it, but the former angle kept his eyes on the ground. He looked frozen, a deep red flustering his cheecks, fingers pressing into his thighs. Dean swallowed loudly, Castiel let out a shaky breath and slowly met Dean's eyes.

"Okay," he managed to say, his voice sounding restricted. He was experiencin something new again. He could recognize anger towards Crowley, sadness for realizing that someone he liked was now long gone, and confusion for feeling like this because of a demon. The stabbing feeling in his heart got more intense the more he thought about it, and his guts felt like being tied to knots. It was hurting again, and it felt overwhelming. His eyes burned at the empty feeling inside of him, and he realized it was the feeling of losing and missing someone.

"Dean..." Castiel forced out a sound that was just a little more than a whisper. "I think I'm gonna miss her," and with that he gave in to the chrushing feeling. Rapid blinking made streams of tears start to roll down his reddened cheecks, falling to his lap where his hands were clenched into fists. His whole body was shaking, taken by this new sensation that he knew was crying. He didn't know to be embarrased by it, because no one had told him that men don't cry, or that it's showing a weakness. And it really isn't, but the fact that Dean's best friend was uncontrollably sobbing and weeping in front of him made him feel nervous.

Hesitantly Dean leaned forward and wrapped his arms around Castiel, holding him tightly and rubbing his back for comfort. Cass felt grateful for that human contact and buried his face into Dean's shirt.

After what felt for ages for Dean, and only a short moment for Castiel, his sobbing subsided into silent snivels.

"Alright," Dean patted Cass' back roughly and drew away from him. "Feel better yet?"

"Weirdly, yes. I thought crying was a bad thing?" Castiel sounded genuinely confused, but he really felt better. Like the weight on his heart was a little bit lighter now that he had let some of the feelings out.

"Well, humans cry when they are feeling sad, and it releases some hormones or something like that, Sam knows about that crap, so ask him, okay?"

Castiel gave Dean a faint smile, because he knew that Dean knows about this stuff, he knows a lot of stuff, but he doesn't want to seem too _nerdy _as he says. He nods and rubs his sweaty hands on his knees, feeling a little more refreshed. Now that he has his own thoughts pushed away for a little while, he remembers that Dean came in to the room looking like he had something important to tell.

"Uh, I'm sorry, Dean. You had something you wanted to talk about?"

Dean parted his lips, words already formed in his mouth, but he stopped.

"You know what, it's nothing. We'll talk about it later. Let's go have some family time in the livingroom, shall we?" Dean stood up from the chair and motioned with his hand for Cass to follow him. He possibly couldn't ask him to leave after that.

Not yet.


End file.
